News and Updates

Blog: Hype Rockwell (1.13.18)

Posted: January 13, 2018

As N_R_G, Race & I fought uphill against all kinds of challenges. We went through every tag team on the roster. We were always the underdogs, and we faced adversity at every turn. Our opponents underestimated us, and the fans were cold toward us. But we persevered, and in time, we flourished. We went from not deserving to be in the ring with the top-tier tag teams in CHIKARA, to realizing we could be their equals. We met our goals and we succeeded. We traveled the world and challenged one of the most intimidating teams in The Devastation Corporation and eventually dethroned them...right in our own backyards. Some nights it felt like Race & I were not on the same page, but on September 27th, 2015, everything clicked. We walked into the Norfolk Temple with something to prove. We walked out as Campeones de Parejas.

You don't have to fast-forward all that much to find out that maybe Race & I weren't on the same page for very long. In Season 17, it wasn't our in-ring chemistry that defined us, it was one man's selfishness and narcissism. After our championship heights, we suddenly found rock bottom. Race showed me he could be the lowest of the low. After "Left Behind" there was a new goal in front of me. I had to recover from Race's betrayal. I had to recover from having my orbital bone fractured. I had to find a way to show Race the error in his ways.

The road back wasn't an easy one, and it wasn't quick either. I spent a lot of time on the sidelines, just watching. My injuries needed time. I needed time to watch.

If you fast-forward to "Closing Time," you know I did my homework. I studied Race while I recuperated, and eventually, I made good on a promise I had made to myself during those long months of recovery. I'll never have to see the face of the man who turned his back on me, ever again. And in CHIKARA, neither will anyone else. It was a challenge to become Campeones de Parejas. It was a challenge to defeat the partner and friend who betrayed me by dropping a stage on my face. Now, on January 28th, I face a new challenge, and I am ready.

At "Beware The Snowman" I will challenge the Grand Champion of CHIKARA. I will stand across from Juan Francisco de Coronado and I will not be content to just prove I am his equal. I must be just a little bit better. If I want my name to be counted among the most celebrated in CHIKARA's 16 year history, alongside Hallowicked or Princess KimberLee or Icarus, I must be better than Juan Francisco on January 28th. His technical skill is impressive, don't get me wrong. But the Grand Champion has never faced someone as powerful as me before. Wrestlers big and small, experienced or inexperienced know this to be true: you're only one ride on the Hyperwheel away from counting the lights.

-HR

Photo Credit(s):

Zia Hiltey

Blog: Fire Ant (12.4.17)

Posted: December 05, 2017

How appropriate, karma’s idea of a joke, that a fire ant would be constantly forced to watch the world burn. The last time events like this happened, CHIKARA burned down for real. This time it seems the only things to crumble to ashes are the things closest to me.

One by one I watched The Colony consumed by the madness of Nazmaldun and his exterminator, Frightmare. The people I cared for most were all destroyed, one by one, right before my eyes. Never to be the same again. Never to be again.

Naively I thought that was the worst we'd ever have to face. We banded a new group of good brothers and sister to unite against any threat to CHIKARA. We failed miserably, dragged down by our individual obsessions. The quest for gold. The need for revenge. The insecurity of inexperience. The void of a collective threat consumed us all. We were a group in name only, banding together to fight ghosts -- until we became ghosts. Maybe I should have let Quackenbush go ahead with his crazy contingency plan. At least this burden would be his.

Instead, I firmly place the blame on my own shoulders. It was the height of arrogance to think our good intentions alone would create a force capable of repelling any enemy. Well, you know where they say good intentions will lead you. That’s where I am now. My own personal pit of scorching flames. I'm long past the point of caring for the collective anymore.

I am truly the Last Ant Standing, and I will forever stand alone. The Furies are no more. Now, there is just me. A colony of one.

-FA

Blog: Ophidian (12.1.17)

Posted: December 01, 2017

I should have known you’d be back, sooner or later. You cannot kill what isn’t truly alive, I suppose.

Were you overcome with envy? You just couldn’t take it anymore, could you? Watching on as I surpassed your very existence. That must’ve been hard, knowing in the place of your failures I piled success upon success. So you picked your moment to strike, at the height of my Osirian Portal’s glory, three points in hand...and there you were. Standing once again as the imposter 17. How ashamed you must have been when I exposed your ruse to the world. So in retribution, you've broken my arm. Bravo, Inferior Ophidian. It will be months before my Osirian Portal is able to cash in these three points. Months before we'll claim the golden belts. My bone will heal snake, but your shame will last forever.

How low must you feel, to return to the guise of 17. The absolute nadir in a career of lows. Throughout MY time as Ophidian there have been many naysayers, and those proclaiming that I’m a fake, and while that couldn’t be farther from the truth it does share an interesting parallel to your time as 17. You were the fake, merely passable, a believable stand-in for the original 17. You were never superior. I am superior.

As for your time as 17? In your eyes it must be your darkest time. An agreement you would unknowingly come to regret. Hidden amongst the ranks of The Flood to prevent further tragedy...it was a clever idea. Remember the man you saved from Deucalion’s wrath? I certainly do. Remember the man that destroyed The Colony? The man who ended Inferior Amasis? It's the man you spared from Deucalion: Frightmare. Just think how radically different the world would be right now if not for Frightmare...if not because of you. That act of salvation has brought about your own destruction. The guise of 17 is the catalyst of your failures, I can only imagine how that fills your cold-blooded gut with acid.